Air dropping aid in Syria - the case against it.

There was an article recently in the Daily Telegraph bemoaning the fact that the RAF isn’t dropping aid to starving civilians in Syria, and that as the besieged towns are only 80 seconds flying time from the border, the UK is simply not doing enough to help. Apparently the air defence threat is minimal and that its appalling that the UK wont take risk to help starving people. 

A quick scan of many military forums such as pprune highlights the strong reaction felt by serving military personnel against what they perceive to be as a slur on their service. It is really easy to write articles like this to get people outraged and think that nothing is being done, when it seems all to patently simple what the solution is. The problem though is that the answer is vastly more complicated than it seems. 

For starters, airdrops are not easy – they require a lot of planning to get right and ensure the right aid goes to the right people. What do you drop, what are peoples needs, what are the supplies that make the most difference? Even this basic level of information is lacking – to gather it, you need to put boots on the ground to do a recce mission to understand the challenge and how to fix it. 

Straight away you’ve gone from airdrops to people on the ground, which in turn means putting a fairly complex package together to insert, support, direct and extract the right people at the right time. That is nowhere nearly as easy as Hollywood makes it sound. It requires a lot of aircraft, people and force protection to put people on the ground, keep them safe and ensure they have communications that work. We then have to deal with reality that British troops are on the ground, engaged in opposition to the Syrian Armed Forces - the precise situation we wanted to avoid happening. 

Then you need to know where to drop the aid, and ensure that the supplies are dropped in the right location to be picked up by the right people. This means finding a safe spot where a slow steady run can go in (there are upper speed limits to ensure packages thrown out the back don’t destroy themselves on landing). You need to ensure that the food aid lands somewhere that it can be collected safely – nothing would be worse than people dying in artillery or sniper fire as they tried to collect food dropped for them.There are not likely to be many open spaces though for it to land, and those that exist would become a killing ground to be pummelled by enemy fire. 

 You also need a landing zone to ensure the packages can come down without landing on top of people and killing them – again, this isn’t easy and takes a lot of co-ordination to do properly. Crates falling from the sky can easily kill someone if they land in the wrong place or on top of people.  Finally you need to find a way of coordinating all this so the Syrian air defences don’t know you are coming, and shoot you down on the way in. 

Its easy to say airdrop aid, but much harder to do it safely in a manner that doesn’t kill people on landing, and ensures the contents land somewhere without being destroyed and which doesn’t land in the wrong part of town. Just look at Arnhem or the Normandy landings as an example of how difficult it is to airdrop supplies in to a location without an airstrip, and the confusion and chaos that generally follows. If you want to mount air relief, then you need an airstrip of some form –  the Berlin airlift worked because they could land on local strips to unload. Relying on airdropped cargo which cannot always land where you want is a hiding to nothing and unlikely to have any real impact. It can be done, but it is difficult to do in the long term and this is the open ended question. 

How long would the UK need to supply aid for – its not a case of doing one drop to make ourselves feel good, we’d only prolong the inevitable. Instead it’s about a long term commitment until food aid can come in by other means – this may take months or years and represent a very open ended commitment involving dozens of aircraft and people. 

One C130 cannot hold that much cargo, so several need to be used each time, and there is only a finite area to fly in in order to drop the aid. If you are an air defence commander, and you know that aid flights are coming in daily, and that they have limited airspace to operate in, then suddenly it becomes much easier to put together a really credible threat. Its not the same as trying to shoot down a fast jet strike coming in unexpectedly – shooting at cargo planes on very predictable flight paths, that must fly into certain airspace to deliver their cargo means over time losses would be inevitable. Air defence against a known threat is going to very straightforward – much like in WW2, where a bomber crew had a 4% chance of being shot down, if you do 25 missions then the odds of being shot down increase significantly. 

Its easy to look at historical records and suggest that the Israeli Air Force has never had an aircraft shot down in Syria – but there is a huge difference between small operations with high speed jets capable of deploying a wide range of countermeasures, coming in unexpectedly and with the element of surprise, and then comparing this to slow lumbering transport aircraft that will lack surprise, speed or the ability to easily defend themselves. 

Any such commitment of airdropping is going to take time, effort and likely to generate precious little results other than seeing aid dropped to our opponents, and good aircraft shot down with the likely loss of their crews. A one off mercy mission would salve our conscience, but not make any real difference to the people. Short of increased air strikes to take out Syrian air defences to clear a path – essentially declaring war on Syria to do this, there is no way that dropping aid can be done without putting planes at risk, and its highly unlikely that it would solve the problem either. It is never easy to say no, but at times like this inaction is likely saving more lives than action would. 

The events in Syria are truly awful, but blaming the RAF for not dropping aid is wrong – it is not something that can be done properly without great risk to Syrians, to the RAF and could cause long term consequences of a very serious nature indeed if things go wrong. 

Labouring on Defence - Labour Party Defence Policy

The recent Labour reshuffle that almost was, almost wasn’t and then was again has thrust to the forefront the very real challenges facing Labour as a political party on Defence matters. The relationship that Labour has with Defence is perhaps more challenging than any other party – in the Conservatives the appointment of the Defence team is one of those posts that few raise eyebrows on, with the party being united broadly on Defence spending, the only question being ‘how much more’?

For Labour the relationship is more challenging. Historically the Party when in Government has been very good for the military – talk to many serving or retired officers and two things become clear. Firstly, there are a lot more labour party voters and members in the military than people suspect – its perhaps natural, with many recruits coming from traditional Labour constituencies and heartlands and being the target audience that would be tapped for support. There is inherent sympathy for Labour across all ranks – the military is not a monolithic conservative voting bloc, far from it. Yet despite this, many in Labour have perhaps often been suspicious of the military and its intentions.

Secondly, Labour in Government has traditionally been a good friend of the military. When one looks at the reviews done on Defence since the end of WW2, its clear that Labour has been far more proactive in addressing challenges and refocusing the military to deal with what needs to be done. The party has been responsible for setting up the nuclear deterrent, Polaris and Trident (never forget James Callaghan began negotiations to get Trident, and not Margaret Thatcher) and Trident renewal. It oversaw the 1966 Defence Review which famously withdrew the UK from the Middle and Far East – the right (and very difficult) strategic decision to focus on the real threats at a time of economic challenge. The New Labour ‘Strategic Defence Review’ of 1998 is held up as an example of how to do a good Defence Review, and remains probably the single most effective and ambitious defence review since WW2.

Labour Ministers have often been of the highest quality and highly regarded by the military establishment, who often have a very personal relationship with ‘their Ministers’ compared to other Departments. One only has to look at Dennis Healey, George Robertson and John Reid, who are regarded as some of the best Defence Ministers of the post war era of any party.

NATO is bedrock of UK security

So what is the problem?

Despite this very positive relationship, the Party is struggling to be taken seriously on Defence due to the rise of the hard left again. The constant tensions of unilateral disarmament dating back to the 1980s are once again exposing themselves, and became very clear during the reshuffle. To see a Shadow Defence Minister fired for supporting Labour policy on Trident, while a unilateralist came in to champion a cause that was clearly not policy was mildly surreal.

Labour is pushing a defence review that will once again look at the UKs place in the world and whether to have Trident or not. It seems a foregone conclusion that this review will call for a scrapping of Trident and abolition of nuclear weapons. A heavy cut in defence spending would also seem likely, and would see the effective end of the UK as a global military power.

If the UK were a nation in isolation, then this sort of policy debate could continue quite happily without wider ramifications. But the world today is interconnected and these arguments, played out in the Westminster village bubble will have wider impacts. All governments around the world pay heed to what opposition parties are saying, to understand what impact this will have if they become a government in due course.

For highly influential figures in the main opposition party to be debating leaving NATO, no matter how much this is denied, this has an impact. Other nations will assess this and wonder what it means for their own defence. In the current world, where NATO is a bedrock of security and a nuclear alliance (all UK nuclear weapons are assigned to NATO normally), to see one of the lead NATO nations political parties discuss both disarmament and withdrawal will cause dismay.

To the Russians and others opposed to NATO, this highlights a strategic opportunity which can be exploited. Russia has a deeply challenging relationship and attitude to NATO at the best of times, and would welcome anything which reduced what it feels is pressure on its Western borders that could challenge it. It is inconceivable that after the news this week, Russian planners are not already considering what they can do to try and use these statements to help undermine NATO and help reduce its effectiveness.

Similarly, many smaller states, such as the Baltic republics, live in a very real fear of Russian resurgence and aggression. They rely on the UK and others to provide their reassurance and support, remembering what it is like to be invaded and occupied by Russia and in turn they see it happening elsewhere in Ukraine. There will be real fear that the suggestions that a future UK government could disarm and walk away, no matter how informally they are made, could threaten their own national existence. This is not hyperbole, Russia has form for ‘absorbing’ its neighbours, and they rely on the nuclear alliance as their ultimate security guarantee. They will not welcome anything which threatens this position.

A few years ago it was easy to not be concerned about Russia – today it is far less easy. A nation home to despotic rule and human rights abuses which is making a habit of invading and destabilising its neighbours, which pays no respect to the international rules based order, and which has form for supporting despotic regimes and invading other nations is not an ally that should be courted. No one wants war with Russia, but we fail to see that Russia views the world in a totally different, and significantly more paranoid mind-set than the West. Many are guilty of assuming that because Russia is a European country, it has a European mind-set – nothing could be further from the truth. The Russian mind-set is one of scheming, paranoia and a desire to avenge wounded prides. A nation that has been invaded more times than it cars to remember is still very aggressive today.

Trident Submarine at sea

What could disarmament mean?

To adopt a policy of unilateral disarmament and deep defence cuts would mean radically changing and undermining the key policy guidelines that have driven the UK since the end of the second world war. It would in a stroke kill the relationship with the US, that provides the UK with access to highly valuable intelligence and other material – the US works with the UK because it trusts us as a responsible nuclear global power. If it felt the UK was no longer in this group, the flow of material would turn off and the UK would be far more vulnerable to attack.

The UK is a key player in the Five Eyes agreement on defence and intelligence co-operation – the loss of this, which would follow any such changes would have a hugely damaging impact on UK defence and security interests, and would also threaten our allies who rely on the UK to provide them with intelligence and capability. By walking away from our obligations, we put other nations at direct risk too.

NATO as a whole would be undermined, and France would become the sole European nuclear power. It would leave the UK unable to exert influence, which is a combination of diplomatic, economic and military capability combined, in a manner that protected UK interest. A denuded UK would not have the same ability to persuade others to act as it wishes (many forget that the UK is a hugely influential NATO member at present, shaping how the alliance responds), and we may find ourselves forced to adopt policies or dragged into issues that we have no wish to be involved in.

More widely, our allies around the world who look to us for help and reassurance would instead look elsewhere. This reduces our ability to influence and protect our friends (and many expatriate Britons) and reduces our ability to push for change. People don’t realise that the best way to lobby for reform and real human rights change in some nations is to be trusted and valued as a friend – this is the path to change, not hectoring from the outside. We will probably see many nations, particularly in the middle east, who rely on the UK as a nation of safety and influence put their investments and economic wealth into other locations – thus causing job losses and long term economic damage to the UK.

Finally, there is no guarantee that disarming would make the UK a safer place to be, or that it would inspire others to do the same. The Ukrainians were briefly a legacy nuclear power, and found that made no difference when they disarmed. South Africa acquired several home built weapons, but when it scrapped them it made no difference at all to global proliferation. Indeed, after the cold war when Soviet war plans became available, it was clear that in the event of a nuclear war, many countries without nuclear weapons, or membership of an alliance would have been attacked by Russia. To disarm wouldn’t stop the Russians from targeting the UK in a wider war, even if we were not involved in it.

UK military disaster relief efforts in Philippines

So what is the optimal policy?

The irony is that much of what Jeremy Corbyn and the hard left favours (peacekeeping at best, conflict resolution, disaster relief etc) is what the military is optimised for today. It trains extensively to do this, has a global range of assets and bases and capabilities and is able to intervene and help support exactly the sort of outcomes which they favour.

For instance, a modern warship is able to provide power, water, fuel and life support to devastated towns. It can help rescue refugees in the water or tackle piracy and crime. But it can also work with our allies to assure regional security in an increasingly difficult world and if necessary fight at a high level. Army training teams can go to Africa and train former rebels on the rules of law, preventing sexual violence and how to support democracy, not threaten it. The military does this right now day in day out, and does so at relatively low cost.

But those nations able to make a difference are those with capable militaries who offer more to support others. Those nations hiding at home are not sought out for support, or to offer teaching and guidance. People want to work with those nations who they know will protect them and be there to help them – for instance NATO. The UK would find if it downgraded its military that the desire of other nations to work, to learn and to help improve their world is limited. We can only help overseas at a distance (for example the disaster relief in the Philippines) if we have the ability to get there – this requires an extensive and expensive set of capability that doesn’t come cheaply. If this is lost, then we become a burden, not an asset as we’d need to rely on others to get us to the crisis, rather than doing it ourselves.

For the Conservatives, the current Labour woes on Defence are an utter gift. They rightly realise that the average voter they need to win over is broadly centrist – they want a leftish social and health care policy, but a relatively hawkish defence and foreign policy. Never underestimate how proud millions of ordinary voters are of the armed forces and what they stand for – people equate them to values that they are proud to uphold. Equally, people want to feel safe and secure – there is no great groundswell of active campaigning for Trident, but there is a sense of talking to people that they want to know it is there if required. It is an intangible thing, but the Conservatives have a golden opportunity to exploit this as an electoral asset.

To win an election again, Labour will need to bring those who voted Labour in 1997 back into the fold. They need to get the moderate centrists who are neither Tory or Labour at heart, but who can be persuaded either way, to feel safe enough to vote for Labour. The offer needs to compelling and one that makes those in swing seats feel that they can trust their security to a future Labour government.

Right now the Tories have quite literally years ahead of them to reinforce several messages about Labour defence policy; that it threatens the UK, that it threatens the very fabric of the nation, that it could pose a real threat to our way of life. The declining and parlous state of the international order, as demonstrated by the detonation of a hydrogen bomb by North Korea on the day that Emily Thornberry went to Defence highlights how easy this job will be for them. Expect years of the broadsheets and tabloids going to town on Labour defence policy and showing how Labour cannot be trusted to keep Britain safe.

The only way to overcome this is to go back to what made Labour so good at Defence in Government. A moderate centrist approach that emphasises the minimum possible nuclear deterrent, coupled with capable armed forces to protect ourselves, support our friends and deter our enemies, while enabling us to travel overseas to offer aid to those who need it. This was essentially New Labour defence policy and was so effective that Defence ceased to be an issue on which the Conservatives could campaign or exploit during the Blair years. Today that ground has been ceded, and defence is a policy area that the Conservatives will ruthlessly exploit to the detriment of Labours electoral chances.

It is hard to see how Labour on its current path can return to being a trusted party on Defence. The appointment of Emily Thornberry, a unilateralist who actively took money from a firm suing British soldiers and who sneers so openly at the patriotism which matters to many many voters demonstrates how out of touch Labour is at present on Defence.

Defence as an issue alone will not win an election, but it will go an awfully long way towards Labour losing one if something is not done soon.

The Year to Come - what could 2016 hold for the UK military?

As a new year dawns, it is hard to avoid reaching the conclusion that the world is in a tricky place, and the UK faces many challenges ahead in the year to come. I wanted to set out my own views on what could come to pass this year and how it may impact the UK defence and security community as a whole.

The global situation now is more unsettled than at any point since the end of WW2. Across the globe we see war, natural disasters, human misery and an unleashing of pent up frustrations. The much vaunted ‘end of history’ has not come to pass. If anything the world now needs to understand and learn from history, to avoid future history being a story of failure and regret.

For the UK, the completion of the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) means that for the MOD, 2016 will be a year of consolidation and implementation. The review contained many commitments and challenges, and the MOD will have to focus now on moving on from questioning what it does, to implementing what it has to deliver. Some of these changes will be straightforward, others more challenging.

The clearly stated desire to move to a much longer term ‘global defence engagement’ footprint means there is likely to be a long period of re-engagement in some areas, and boosting of presence in others. Long standing locations of choice like BATSUB in Belize, neglected for some years, may see an increased presence, whilst in the Middle East and Asia Pacific, we are likely to see work done to implement the new ‘British Defence Staffs’ for the region. These herald the first formal setting up of permanent command structures for a non-operational task since the withdrawal from east of Suez in the 1970s, and their presence should be warmly welcomed.

In the Gulf in particular the UK will find itself committed to a region of significant instability and tension. Saudi Arabia appears to be on the verge of a serious diplomatic spat with Iran, which while unlikely to become kinetic in nature, will do nothing to ease tensions. The smaller gulf states will look anxiously for external protectors, and those with older or more insecure rulers may look with concern at what happens when Houses or regimes fall. The UK will need to decide whether to embrace the new or sustain the old, or as is most likely, strike a balance between the two.

It is unlikely that we will see a full scale shooting war in the region, but the ongoing commitment of maritime forces in the Arabian Gulf, and the RAF and elements of ground forces in Iraq will continue. There is unlikely to be ‘victory’ in Iraq / Syria, if only because there is no clear agreement on what victory is there. The ongoing commitment of the RAF to the region in not insubstantial numbers will increasingly go largely unremarked, except when journalists want to write stories about the lack of aircraft committed to the campaign, or the relatively low number of strikes conducted.

While in itself the ongoing air campaign will not unduly tax the military overall, it will put pressure on both the GR4 and ISTAR forces, particularly as the GR4 comes to the end of its life. The drawdown of the fleet will reduce the ability for it to respond to other roles, which could be potentially embarrassing if called upon for an exceptional crisis. Meanwhile the Typhoon fleet will continue to gain in size and capability, although it is unlikely to translate into any credible export sales this year – the medium term future for the UK aerospace industry is looking more challenging unless one of the many expressions of interest is translated into a firm concrete order soon.

In Europe the combination of the ongoing humanitarian crisis and Russian intransigence will cause challenges for many countries. While again a war is exceptionally unlikely, it is possible that Russian mischief making could keep some NATO countries on edge, whilst seeing ongoing commitments of UK forces to conduct training and reassurance to them. There is likely to be a steady procession of training teams heading East to try to calm nerves, and equally there is likely to be strident efforts to avoid being committed to permanent bases in the region.

It is likely that UK support to the humanitarian crisis will become enduring, as the flood of humanity continues to edge west. Whether this turns into a more kinetic response in due course is yet to be seen, although the loss of moral outrage since the summer over dead toddlers indicates there is currently little public sympathy for the notion that ‘something must be done’ (even if we don’t quite know what it is!). These tasks will continue to take high capability Royal Navy platforms off other duties, and again highlight that the UK Border Force cutters are perhaps more useful than a frigate for this role – what this means for the surface fleet is not yet clear.

Africa is likely to remain a continent of deeply unstable messes, with the constant potential for evacuation operations, hostage rescue and other tasks. The UK has spent more time in Africa than perhaps is often realised in recent years, and there remains a not insubstantial British commitment on the ground in training teams across the continent. This will doubtless continue, although a more kinetic involvement in places like Libya cannot be ruled out if the nation looks likely to fall. What is clear though is the combination of an unstable north, coupled with older rulers and more despotic rulers in the south, means that there are plenty of opportunities for the UK to find itself sucked in at short notice to new tasks or problems.

The Asia Pacific region will increase in tensions as the Chinese continue to assert their claims to various pieces of real estate in the region, which in turn will be contested by other nations. The UK will retain an interest, in part due to the much wider network of diplomatic and commercial interests in the region, but is unlikely to get directly embroiled in it due to the minimal UK military commitment or interest in the region as a whole. That said though, this is one region where things have the potential to get out of hand quickly if not closely monitored and calmed.

Overall the UK will find itself torn between being a globally committed power, seeking to influence events across many continents, while seeing that despite being very capable, there is only so much resource to go around. Ultimately for the UK, 2016 may the year of holding the line and trying to keep a complex web of alliances, bilateral links and relationships alive, while not necessarily having the time, money or people to fully commit to all of them all of the time. 

Typhoon will remain heavily committed overseas

For the MOD as a whole, it is likely that a lot of effort will go into meeting the in year savings measures announced by the Chancellor last year, while trying to save lots of money without directly impacting on front line outputs. This won’t be easy and is likely in time to lead to damaging headlines as newspapers spot what they consider to be ‘defence cuts’ and compare them to the promise to spend 2% of GDP on Defence.

Recruitment and employment conditions will probably be of high importance, trying to not only meet an ever more challenging target for recruiting to the reserves, but also retaining those who have joined and find their interest waning, whilst also keeping the regular military recruited too. Trying to balance the challenges of retaining manpower within pinch point trades, whilst meeting operational commitments and harmony time for people but without significant flexibility for either reward or career changes will be difficult. One of the less glamorous but arguably more important changes will be the move to a New Employment Model (NEM), trail blazed in SDSR, but which will set out how the UK will pay and reward people in future.

The NEM is interesting because it marks the move away from a traditionally Victorian rooted system last really looked at some decades ago, and instead moves to a much more modern system in line with the aspirations of todays new joiners. It will doubtless cause disgruntlement among older personnel, and again may be the cause of much media angst as the year progresses.

On an equipment front the two biggest stories of the year will likely be the sailing for trials of HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH, some 18 years after the project was first confirmed in the 1998 SDR. This will combine national pride in a job well done, with national outrage on stories about carriers without harriers and other such ill-informed rubbish, particularly as she isn’t due to commission till next year. The decision for new trident submarines will also dominate headlines, as much from a political angle as a military one. The successor programme will be a hugely complex project and is likely to be the cause of much attention as it moves forward towards service entry.

The Army will seek to do more of this at any cost!

For the RN, the year will be about focusing on the move to the new carriers, and once again trying to slowly move forward Type 26 and the RFA vessels. New capability is looming ever closer on the horizon, and much dangerous water was successfully navigated during SDSR, but we’re not out of the woods yet. There will need to be some tough decisions made soon on issues like RFA DILIGENCE and future stores ships, as well as manpower, particularly retention.

The RAF will be primarily fixated by delivering a range of operations across the world, and in keeping to manning the Typhoon fleet and drawing down Tornado, while getting F35 ever closer. The news that MPA is back will help rejuvenate morale, but will take several years to come good. In the meantime, the service will operate both very old and very capable platforms in very difficult circumstances.

The key focus for the Army will be on identifying what it is meant to do in the post SDSR world. For all the talk of divisional capability and rapid reaction forces, SDSR was not the finest hour for the Army, which it seems clear is significantly overmanned for political, not operational reasons. Expect to see a lot of defence engagement press releases, and every chance possible to push the case for an army that with the end of HERRICK has lost a war but not found a raison d’etre to believe in.

Whatever happens, it will be an exciting and challenging year ahead, and it is clear that we will be living in ‘interesting times’…

Honours for old rope?

The recent announcement of the New Years Honours list saw a debate on many military forums about the value of the Honours system and whether it still has a place in the military of today. Many saw it as a debased system, with mates rewarding other mates, knowing that they’d get the favour returned in due course. On the flip side there is the argument that the system provides a great way of recognising the efforts of others, in a way that costs little but highlights appreciation of a job well done.

My own view is that the system does a good job well, but that it needs to be open about how it selects and rewards people. Its very easy to say ‘oh its rewards for the boys’ when you see another very senior officer get an award, but equally we perhaps fail to recognise that the ability to offer retention incentives are few and far between in public service. There are no easy ways of providing someone with a fiscal reward, no stock options and no means of saying ‘please stay, we think you are brilliant’ that don’t cost money.

In a cash strapped public sector, the award of an honour does two things well. Firstly, it provides a very cost effective means of recognising effort by someone, and hopefully making them realise that their work is appreciated and valued. Secondly it functions as a retention tool, encouraging people to perhaps stay if they are motivated by more than just money. The potential opportunity to win an Honour or award is slim, but can serve as a tangible means of encouraging someone to stay the course – anyone wavering may find that the announcement of a good job done well could help keep them on course.

For the military in particular, where the fight to retain talent at more senior levels is a real challenge, this is perhaps a valuable reason to keep the system. For mid-level – senior officers (e.g. SO1 and above), the constant appeal of the private sector is out there, with the offer of good financial rewards. These people often have skills that have taken years to develop, and are able to directly support the UK in a way that is not always recognised, but if they didn’t exist would be sorely missed. There is no easy way to keep them, but many officers who are coming up on a tough decision could be perhaps swung by the potential rewards out there.

A common argument raised on sites like ARRSE is that the system doesn’t reward more junior people and that you rarely see Privates or Corporals on the list. Is this unrealistic though – the average Private or Corporal is in an early stage of their career, and while often very capable is usually doing work that is quite proscribed in nature and where there is limited opportunity to exceed expectations. It usually takes many years to get to a point as a non commissioned person where someone is in a post which provides a chance to go beyond the usual roles and really demonstrate how they’ve excelled and contributed to more than just their role.

By contrast some relatively junior officers, by dint of the roles they are required to fill, occasionally find themselves with more freedom of manoeuvre and opportunity to excel in a way which meets the requirement for a State Honour. Whether this is a problem of the system, or a reality that the current military manpower and career structure offers these roles to Officers not junior ranks is less clear. Either way it’s a truism that there are few opportunities for junior ranks to be visibly rewarded at an early stage with a State Honour, but there are plenty of other more local ways of recognising their efforts appropriately.

One wonders too if the UK didn’t have such a system, whether strident efforts would be made to create one – noting that the vast majority of nations these days have some form of state recognition system in place.

So, while its perhaps an annual debate as much part of Christmas as the Turkey or the family arguments to debate the merits of the Honours System, at present it seems to me an effective way of trying to recognise and reward effort in a way that is entirely fitting, even if some feel it is outdated.

On that note, Happy New Year!

Singing in the Rain - the military and UK Flooding

Buying Warships from America. Why the Sums Don't Add Up.

An article by highly respected Naval author Mike Critchley over at the Portsmouth News (inspired me to write this piece (link is HERE) It talks on part about how the UK should look to the US to buy more ‘off the shelf’ equipment to try and bring more into service at a lower overall cost.

On paper buying American is often cited alongside ‘just do Commercial Off the Shelf’ (COTS) as a great way of saving the MOD money and enabling the UK to get more bang for its buck. I must be honest though and say that I fundamentally disagree that always buying American is the right solution.

The usual premise is that there is a way that UK could go to the US and get vastly cheaper equipment compared to the so-called gold plated requirements of the MOD. The often cited case is either the Blackhawk, which supposedly was offered to the UK for a very cheap sum some years ago to fill the support helicopter requirement on HERRICK, or the Arleigh Burke destroyer, which has been block built now for 30 years and unit costs are reduced greatly. It’s a great idea isn’t it – buy cheap and then just throw the cheap kit into service.

The problems with this argument start with the fact that the so-called ‘cheap blackhawk’ was nothing of the sort. US equipment prices for US kit often doesn’t include fairly important things like the engine, as they’re counted as ‘Government Furnished Equipment’ and procured separately then mated into the design. Then you need to add in all the so-called ‘bells and whistles’ like communications equipment, kit that is operable with UK requirements and so on, and integrate all the software on the airframe or ship. Software and equipment integration is seriously challenging and the reason costs rise – its all very well saying ‘stick the following pieces of kit on a design’ but if they can’t talk to each other, can’t fight as part of an integrated combat management system or worse actively degrade the performance of other capabilities, then its going to be messy and expensive to fix.

This is of course not taking into account the complete lack of a US spares chain in the UK, which would need to be brought in from scratch, the lack of suitably qualified personnel to operate and maintain the airframe or ship, and the lack of support and maintenance facilities to run them from. All of this can be brought into service, but it comes at a cost, and arguably by the time this is factored in, the cost is equal to or often greater than buying British.

Its often forgotten that in the 1990s the RN looked seriously at purchasing some Ticonderoga class cruisers to cover the air defence gap during the T42/NATO Frigate/CNGF/T45 replacement problems. Reportedly one of the reasons for rejection was the sheer cost involved of integrating several very different and non standard vessels into the RN, with the considerable headache of how to solve the manpower and supply chain issues just to operate them all, let alone software and communications integration.

USS ARLEIGH BURKE (DDG 51)

Lets assume though that the RN puts forward a case to bolster its force through the purchase of four Arleigh Burke class destroyers. They’re yesterdays technology of course, as the US has struggled to get any credible new build designs into serial production for decades now, but they’re still a capable and potent vessel.

To even buy American means negotiating the challenging hurdle of getting past the ‘Foreign Military Sales’ (FMS) case and getting Congressional approval to do so. In simple terms, to buy, support and operate a new build ship from the US means placing your independence and sovereignty in the hands of the US Government in perpetuity. If their largesse is lost, and they refuse to approve sales, then the UK ability to operate a vessel is arguably lost.

Similarly, FMS places in American hands the ability to decree the purchase rate for spare parts and equipment. It is bought at the pace dictated by the US, perhaps to support operational needs, but often arguably in the name of supporting the US defence industry and congressional districts. To keep operating the equipment means buying what you are told, when you are told, and directly subsidising the US and not UK industry in the process.

Of course you could try and buy a non-standard DDG51 and kit it out to UK standards- to do this would mean taking the design, ripping out all the US bits you don’t want and then putting UK bits in. However this may not be approved by the FMS case, and more importantly adds an enormous bill to the cost as you take a design intended to work one way and try to make it work very differently again.

Then you have to look at the wider industrial implications – its not just the big suppliers who matter, but the small-medium enterprises that really need consistent support to survive. If you suddenly announce that the bulk of your naval construction work for years to come is being divested to the US, these companies financial ability to survive, to create new technology and to be present to bid when the UK build orders come again is doubtful. The margins are extremely tight in the defence sector, and its possible that a move to buying American could cause a lot of them to go under. You may buy American to save money, but in turn, you may be forced into a long term relationship as your specialist suppliers no longer exist in the domestic industrial market.

You have then to consider the national sovereignty argument – one reason the UK relies on UK built capability is because it gives freedom of action and manoeuvre to upgrade the hulls, to place whatever systems you like on them and to grow the platform to meet your own national requirements. Many US FMS sales don’t work like this – the customer is provided with a sealed box, or US staff to operate it. To even open the seals is to risk the entire relationship falling apart, and if you’ve not got an industry to turn to then that can be difficult. Essentially you as a nation have no say over the electronic components that the US provides, how they are serviced and you have no ability to influence them or know how to upgrade or modify them. To buy American can be to risk a high level of national independence in the trade off to acquire short term capability.

The real problem is that while its easy to assume the country you buy from will always be your ally, times change. Russia is experiencing problems after the change in the global situation saw the collapse of its purchase of Mistral class LPDs, which are now going to Egypt. Instead Russia is scrambling around trying to invent a new design which may (or based on their track record) may not enter service some years from now. Russia is also reliant on the Ukraine for many engine parts for their navy – the ongoing tensions there means that the supply of parts no longer happens, and in time the Russian navy is going to struggle to keep itself at sea. Purchasing overseas can save money, and give early access to capability that is otherwise unobtainable, but it does come at a price.

Finally, even if the destroyers entered UK service, you’d need to carefully consider how to integrate such a vastly different design into the UK concept. Assuming the brief is to save money, by bringing 4 US standard DDG51s over, they would have totally different crew concepts of employment communications, propulsion, NBCD, combat systems, weapons, munitions, helicopters, accommodation, life support and other issues to name but a few. The RN has historically struggled to work out what to do with ‘Orphan classes’ (e.g. HMS MERMAID) as they often rely more support than is possible or effective to do (hence the move to just two ship classes at present – namely to save money).

Don’t forget of course that you are reliant on the vagaries of the US supply chain, and that if a war occurred, the chances are that you’d go to the bottom of the priority pile, with US assets taking priority. Is the UK comfortable that it may not get the spare parts it needs to keep a ship at sea and that it will always play second string to the US Navy in this respect? What happens if the UK went to war on a national issue (e.g. Falklands) and found the US Government wasn’t willing to provide the spare parts needed?

If on the other hand you then wanted to kit the vessels out to a UK standard, the question is where to start? Who is paying for the integration work for the vessels, is modification covered by the sales agreement? What are the ITAR (technology transfer regulation) implications of such a move and how would it happen? To take just one simple example, putting a UK secure IT network for UK EYES ONLY material onto the ship would mean changing the entire IT capability, bolting on new kit that the ship wasn’t designed or intended to carry and coming at considerable cost. That’s just to send an email from the ship, let alone fight it.

There is the wider issue too as to whether the US values client states in the same way as it values genuine partners. The reason the UK brings value to the US is its ability to provide operationally independent capability capable of war fighting at the very highest level without recourse to others for help. This is merged with world class industry and an ability to produce genuinely innovative solutions to capability problems – often taken up or mirrored by the US and other allies.

To move to a more client state relationship in order to put more ships at sea more cheaply would fundamentally mean changing the nature of the UK relationship with the US, threatening the independence and the ability to add value in the same way. Arguably an RN operating DDG51s is not in the best interest of the USN for a variety of reasons.

There will always be some element of exporting equipment in from other countries, and the UK does use a lot of US derived equipment in some areas.  But it pays to prevent yourself from being too beholden on one nation for support – not only does it not save money, but it significantly constrains your freedom of action and ability to operate without the active approval and support of a foreign nation. Some smaller powers are prepared to make this trade off, knowing that their own industrial base is more limited, or that the realistic prospect of their taking unilateral action is so slight as to not be worth it.

Its fair to say buying national capability seems expensive, but when costed up is arguably no less expensive than buying from the US and adapting the kit to meet UK standards – its just the headline figures that are cheaper. To buy US to save money is an alluring argument, but one that is fundamentally built on dangerous assumptions that could pose a real challenge to the ongoing ability of the Royal Navy to work effectively on operations. It should not be encouraged.

An enduring blitzkrieg?

The Daily Telegraph had a commentary recently by Andrew Gilligan which complained that despite claims that the UK would ‘blitz’ targets in Syria, there is no sign of it actually occurring, and thus the UK isn’t a major military player in the campaign. These sort of articles are frustrating because they fundamentally ignore the realities of modern war. While its easy to want to imagine that the moment an operation is approved, the sky should darken with the weight of airpower descending to flatten the opposition, things aren’t really as easy as that in reality.

The perception during the World War Two and the Cold War was that airpower was something that could provide quick responses, wiping out armour and infantry with ease, and smashing enemy command posts with little difficulty. The first Gulf War did little to counter this impression, and if anything highlighted how easy it can be in benign environments with control of the air all but assured and no real air defence threat present to dominate the land environment. In those circumstances, where you have a clearly defined threat and set of targets, it is easy to employ airpower with significant effect.

The problem we face today is that the enemy is one who we cannot compile an ORBAT for in the same way as volumes were done for the Russians or Iraqis. This is primarily an intelligence gathering battle, slowly but surely understanding the war we are fighting, the way our enemy works and trying to understand his pattern of life and activities.

There is no point in expending vast amounts of expensive ordnance wiping out abandoned buildings or empty positions. The media often think war is like a video game where one enemy after another runs at you and needs to be shot or else. In fact modern war is a far more complex and challenging business – its often slow, with little discernible action occurring, interspersed with occasional outbreaks of sheer terror.

The difficulty for any aerial intervention is that it needs to know what to target, when and why. In a warzone where there are flexible front lines, and fighters who resemble civilians, and civilians who resemble fighters, trying to build up this understanding takes time. It also takes time to work out where to strike, which facilities are used, what are actually schools or hospitals and what the pattern of life is. Some may expect UK jets to roar into action and drop bombs as they wish, but in fact weapons release is the exception rather than the rule – why expend ordnance for no reason, or worse on targets that perhaps are not what you think they are?

The air war in Syria will be slow, it needs time to establish a routine and work out what to strike and when. We cannot assume it will be over by Christmas – to do that means working out what victory looks like and what it is we want to deal with when the war is over. Instead this is a slowly burning campaign, a missile here, a bomb there. It relies on our opponents to provide us with credible targets, not bombing indiscriminately in the hope of hitting something useful. In many ways it resembles the No Fly Zones over Iraq in the early 1990s, where for over a decade the UK and US fought a practically undeclared war against Iraqi air defences, often releasing weapons when required; this quickly became a forgotten campaign.

As the campaign progresses targets may become clearer, or they may become more fleeting as the enemy lurks away from the reach of the air. It is telling that even the US armed forces, who make up nearly 80% of the airpower in the region are operating at a relatively low tempo of strikes – this isn’t because of a lack of airpower, but because this is a campaign that is slow and effective. This will probably not be a war of dambusters and sweeping strikes, but a methodical approach which delivers results with minimal collateral damage and maximum effect on our enemies.

There is always a natural desire to want to do as much as possible as quickly as possible – the so-called ‘shock and awe’ approach – witness for instance the sight of Charles De Gaulle, the sole French aircraft carrier deploying to conduct strikes in Syria, in part as a response to the Paris attacks. In the short term, she adds considerable power and capability, but at the cost of  tying up the sole French carrier as part of a wider campaign, and needing to come off station at some point soon for repairs and refit, without a French replacement.

The UK approach, of keeping a numerically small but sustainable and enormously capable force deployed to the Middle East seems eminently sensible. It provides enough mass to deal with most credible threats that are likely to be faced (essentially an insurgent force with limited capability), but can be kept there for the enduring future. To deploy a larger multi-squadron force would be feasible, but would place strain on long term sustainment, and cause personnel disruption that could be difficult downstream – too many long deployments will always test the goodwill of people, who may easily be tempted elsewhere for the benefits of a family life.

We also forget just how capable modern aircraft are – focusing on numbers is but one part of the problem. The modern Typhoon and Tornado combination provide an astounding level of air defence, air to ground and ISTAR capability, and can quickly be retasked – for instance in Libya the Typhoons there were flying air defence and ground attack missions within the same sortie. You don’t need 100 aircraft to have an effect now when the modern missiles can easily hit the precise target they’re aiming at with little risk of missing. Previously you’d have had to drop ‘dumb bombs’ which would miss, or go back so many times that you’d need multiples of aircraft to achieve the same effect as one can do now.

We’re in this for the long term and unlike many of our NATO allies and coalition partners, we have sufficient mass and capability to deploy a sustainable and credible long term presence in the region. So while the initial numbers may seem small to some, don’t forget that this is an enduring commitment and that it will be there for quite some time to come in addition to a wide range of other operations going on around the world at any one time. For many nations, this sort of deployment is the one thing that they can do, instead of other deployments.

So for me at least, I’m not worried about the idea that somehow our contribution is worthless because I don’t think that’s the case at all. We’re pulling our weight here and around the world, and helping in a measured sustainable way.